Mother’s note explains abandoning of newborn

The woman on the surveillance video arrived at the Tucson International Airport as an expectant mother — and walked out without her newborn baby.

Last week, the Tucson Airport Authority released new information, including a video, about a Jan. 14 incident, revealing chilling new details about a woman who authorities say abandoned a newborn in an airport bathroom around 9 p.m. A rentalcar employee found the boy and a note.

“I just want what is best for him and it is not me. Please. Im sorry,” the note reads.

The baby was found with a torn umbilical cord, and responding medics clamped it, an airport police report said.

Juana Quintana, a custodian, told police she encountered the woman and asked if she was OK after seeing pools of blood on a bathroom floor. The baby was naked with its eyes closed, Quintana said, but the woman said the baby was 3 months old and left in a hurried manner.

The baby appeared healthy otherwise and was taken to a nearby hospital, airport spokeswoman Jessie Butler said in a summary provided to The Washington Post. The baby is in the custody of the Arizona Department of Child Safety, she said.

The airport authority also released the handwritten letter found with the child. It is scrawled on notebook paper and is, in part, in the voice of the newborn: “Please help me. My mom had no idea she was pregnant. She is unable and unfit to take care of me. Please get me to the authorities so they can find a good home.”

The woman might have acted under the assumption she was protected by regulations designed for new mothers to leave newborns with authorities without penalty. The law, known as the safehaven law or Baby Moses law, allows newborns to be left at designated areas such as hospitals and firehouses to prevent the deadly practice of stranding unwanted babies. It applies in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., although states have differing regulations.

Airports are not among facilities commonly designated as safe havens.

In Arizona, babies must be under 72 hours old and unharmed to be legally abandoned, the Arizona Safe Baby Haven Foundation says. The group lists six hospitals in the state where “drawers” are used to discreetly leave babies behind; none is in Tucson.